How to wean off bottle from toddler

This entry is based on my personal experience, i guess there is no right or wrong way off weaning off, just would like to share with you how i did as some have requested an entry on this

Basically i had few reason y i wanted to wean them of frm bottle:

• they like to bite the teat of the bottle, where it ended up with a big hole and milk keep on spilling off on the bed
• we ended up buying new teat for the bottles every week, and we have a dozen of bottles, ain’t cheap to repalce 12 teats every week for their Dr Brown bottle
• hArith woke up 3 times a night for milk, i think it was more on the need to pacify on the bottle, i had enough waking up to bf uZAir so i think getting up 3 times to bancuh milk for him was abit too much, i hardly get a complete 1 hour sleep
• i wanted to wean off uZair from BF so i was thinking not to introduce bottle to him or else i’ll have another problem later on to wean him off from bottle, so why create such headache? hihi
• and the final reason that really made me determine to wean them off was when a couple of times i saw 5 and 6 years old kids at shopping mall pacifying on their empty bottle. i find it not a good sight to see such big kids still drinking milk, and what more just biting it pacifying on their empty bottle once finish drinking. And i think it will be more difficult to wean them off at that age as it already turn into habit. So i was determined to end it. (well of coz this is a personal preferance, some have no problem seeing 5 6 years old still drinking with bottle)

So how did i do it?

For me, most important thing was to get them involved. Let them know what’s happening. I purposely did not wash their bottle throughly so there were some stain on it. I quickly call them and showed that their bottles are dirty and made commotion out of it. And of coz a lil exaggerate here and there of how yucky the bottles are. So i told them, we really need to throw the bottles away and we get new bottles with straw like big boys and big gals (and pointed out few older kids at their kindergarten to give them example)

I then made a fiesta time out of it. I place the rubbish bin some distance from the kids and i said lets pray throw into the basket just like how we play basketball. And they get to throw it themselves, (keyword here is to get them involved) each time they miss the basket i would go  “ohhh nooo!, lets do it again” and when they hit it right in i will give such a big applause and scream “YeESSSS!!!!” and give them the biggest smile ever. They tend to enjoy the “fiesta time” and while we do so i would remind them we need to get rid of these bottles coz they are dirty, full of germs, they will get stomache if they use it.

Once the “fiesta” was over i brought them to OU and they get the privilege in choosing their new water bottle. Of coz i brought them to the section of the type of bottle they shuld get, and they choose the colour and such. If they have some their fav cartoon character then it will be easier, hunt for it..im sure they will be thrill to have water bottle of their fav cartoon character.

Meanwhile i also introduce them to fresh milk (ducth lady) so it will be more convenient to give them instead of doing the formula milk. I introduce both, chocolate and original flavour, obviously my kids wont say no to the choc flavour. But every now and then i give them the original flavour. And slowly i reduce giving the choc and gave the original flavour more frequent. When they able to adapt to the original flavour i stop buying the choc flavour and tell them its finish, i only have the original flavour. Oh by the way their formula milk previously was not choc flavour but do u know formula milk are actually sweet? But the normal fresh milk on the other hand are not, thats why they dont like the white fresh milk at first, hence substituting it with the choc flavour while getting them used to drinking without bottle.

And alhamdulillah now i no longer give them the choc flavour but the white milk. I think it was easier because few of their friends at school drink the dutch lady milk (the older kids) so i pointed that out to them they are already big boys n gals like their friend. And innitially if they wanted to have their milk in the new water bottle i would pour it into their bottle, or if they request to have their formula milk in it, i would bancuh in their water bottle.

And surprisingly the day we threw the bottles, both athirAh and hArith didn’t wake up middle of nite asking for milk, i guess they are aware they no longer have bottle and need to sit up right if they wanna drink milk.

So basically that was how i wean off bottle from my kids. Hope this help 😉

*updated after Fiza commented and asked me, how do i get them to sleep without the bottle. Forgot to mention this part

Well initially since i was weaning uZAir off from breastfeed at the same time i wean them off frm bottle, i had to drive uZair around at nite to distract im from asking for milk. We usually return home once he fell asleep. I think that goes on for almost 2 weeks. But however there are times the elder two does not fall asleep during the drive. So once return home, i made it into a routine to get them to drink the milk form the cup before going to bed. I would say like “alrite, time for bed…jom minum susu dlm cup mcm big boy/gal” and i gave them option either to have it in the kotak (cucuk straw) or pour it into the cup (susu sejuk – kotak besar dlm fridge) or pour it into their new water bottle. hArith would usually have this routine of drinking from the cup but athirAh just not bothered, mmg trus tido saje coz malas nk minum gune cup kot…hihi

up until now, before we go to bed i would ask them if they want to have their milk. Previously with bottle, they would have up to 5 times of bottle during the day (160ml) and at night up to 3 times. but since i wean them off from bottle, they tend to eat more. (a lot more! more than i eat! seriously) so they no longer ask for milk that often